They don't help matters by going and carving each other up on a personal basis every day," Mr. Davis said. "Kerns and Buyer are gaming this in an inappropriate fashion. Each one of them has come to me to try to get the other guy out. It ain't going to work that way."

we don't have the entire context, but it seems clear that Kerns and Buyer are each trying to *manipulate the outcome of the situation. thus we could eschew obfuscation by saying: "Burns and Keyer are maneuvering in an inapropriate fashion." gaming makes it sound (at best, benefit of doubt) like they're involved in some Think Tank which is tooled (:-Þ) with Gaming Theory.

if I really felt the need to make a games analogy, I might go for "jockeying" or "finessing" or (taking a closer look at the context) "end-running".

I must humbly admit that I don't see using gaming as a verb in this sentence as butchery so much as I see this as a sentence once begun needing an end.

Speaking for the record, as it were, is devilishly difficult. The back of the mind is concerned about saying something out of turn, the sub-conscious is worried about looking and sounding like an idiot, and the mouth must move. Finally, the general rush media people are always in does not allow for reflection and artful choice of words on the part of the interview victim. I too have butchered my share of quotes and hoped the next day that my friends and family don't read the newspaper I was quoted in!

It might be one one writer has called "sonic errors" a case of having heard an expression, and not quite understanding it, but using it... similar to mondegreens... like hares breathe (not hairs breadth), If you don't know the the words or expression.. a firm recommendation --might be misconstrued as a hard-- and then Hardily seems to make sense..

I sometime feel at the cusp-- i am very bright-- but not well educatated-- but somewhat well read.. but if i were less well read-- or less educated. or less bright.. and passed throught the "education mill"..

Jay Leno, the comedian, has a weekly special.. "Jaywalking" where he goes out and asks "simple questions"-- and see the kind of answers he gets-- recently, with the US release of "Pearl Harbor" he asked questions like-"When was Pearl Harbor bombed?" , "Who bombed it?" "Who was the war between?", "When was the beginning of WWII?"-- the anwsers included 1924, 1967, the Hawaiins (bombed it) we were at war with the chinese.

Obviously, right answers don't get on the show... but the there is no shortage of people providing wrong answers.. and they don't all seem to be faking... I like to think its not just the average american who is this uneducated!

I like the name sonic errors, Helen! My husband has one that he always does - I can't remember it offhand - he knows the right word but now he's been saying the wrong one too long...I guess it's not a big deal. But I hate to think of someone hearing him and thinking nasty thoughts, like "Boy, what an uneducated lout!" when it's really just one little ingrained mistake, and of course he's quite un-lout-y!

"I like the name sonic errors, Helen! My husband has one that he always does - I can't remember it offhand - he knows the right word but now he's been saying the wrong one too long...I guess it's not a big deal. But I hate to think of someone hearing him and thinking nasty thoughts, like "Boy, what an uneducated lout!" when it's really just one little ingrained mistake, and of course he's quite un-lout-y! "

Bean, This reminds me of one my boyfriend always does. Spanish was his first language. He speaks perfect English but he has a problem with the English conjunction "so" used to mean "therefore". He uses "for" instead of "so", as in "we cross the street with the light so we won't get flattened by a semi". I believe this is because in Spanish the word "por" can mean somewhat the same thing as "therefore", but is translated literally as "for". I am guessing at this. I have always thought it was kinda cute, but the man even writes "for" in the place of "so"!

We have a travelling game we play - the word "accommodation" is one of the most used and most mis-spelled words in tourist areas both here and elsewhere. We look for signs which have it spelled either "acommodation" or "accomodation". There are no points and no prizes, but, hey! who needs 'em?

I think "sonic errors" nails it. I also think many usage errors, especially in spoken English, stem from the fact that (alert, generalization ahead), many people don't read much and if they do read they're reading attrociously written prose. Another of my pet peeves (yes, I am often peevish ), is idiom butchery. Naturally, I can't think of a good one just now, but I'm sure y'all know just what I mean!

Oh you mean like an oar out of the water? or not being able to see the forestin front of his nose Gee I can't imagine why!

and yes.. people read less. and when they do read, its fiction, or demi fiction. and very few us (yeah, me included) read a lot of math --(well no, acutally i do read a fair amount of math, I just don't always understand it.) or science or economics or any technical subject. especially out of our field. Field? people have fields? Oh, please can i have one? i have always wanted to graze sheep-- (faldage can have his part (ugh!) if he wants it..) I want the wool!

some idioms live on.. and their origins are lost.. and they are easy to mangle -- other are like sleeping dogs--their barks are worse than their bites.

the trick is to be pleasantly peevish-- no sense in making your self unhappy because the world is inhabitted by idiots. (or as i say eejits!)

What hope is there when even those purporting to help the ignorant can't be trusted? There's a site called webshots which has very nice photos you can download. It also has a word of the day feature in which it gives a word, its definition, and an example sentence. Today's word was "desultory". The entry is:Desultory: \DESS_ull_tor_ee\, a: 1. Occurring haphazardly; random. My desk may seem desultory to the untrained eye, but in fact, it is an efficient filing system!

A desultory desk??!! Who writes these things? How much are they being paid?

This is not an isolated example. About every third entry seems to have been written by the same person.

Hi CK! Travelling well? An article in today's Melbourne Age quotes Richard Wade, a former deputy controller of BBC's Radio Four, as saying that only 17 per cent of native English speakers can spell the following words correctly: height, necessary, accommodation, separate, sincerely, and business.

Hi CK! Travelling well? An article in today's Melbourne Age quotes Richard Wade, a former deputy controller of BBC's Radio Four, as saying that only 17 per cent of native English speakers can spell the following words correctly: height, necessary, accommodation, separate, sincerely, and business.

He's a spelling reformer and has a website at freespeling.com.

Hi Paul, the travelling is a little antarctic, I'm afraid. Hopefully it'll get better on Wednesday. Honolulu isn't known for its snowfall, fortunately.

Mr Wade and his views have been discussed on the Board before. I think that the general consensus is that some people already follow his approach. Goes contra to everything I believe, actually!

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